Cooking for a Community Fridge

[Shelby]

I'd do the beans, too.  They're easy and when you doctor them up like you do they're excellent.  

[Darienne]

15 minutes ago, patti said:

Maybe I am not as sensitive to taste changes, but I eat vegetable leftovers from the fridge all the time and don’t seem to detect enough of a change in taste to stop me from enjoying. Cheesy broccoli and cauliflower are still great a couple of days later. Air fryer roasted green beans, broccoli, and cauliflower aren’t especially good as leftovers, but I never have that problem because I air fry my serving size and eat them all! Are you worried that green beans won’t hold up well for the CFM? I don’t plan on cooking them two days ahead.

 

You're right.  I do eat leftover cooked vegetables straight from the fridge cold with no sauce or anything...but Ed would never do this.  In fact, he constantly complains...and it's one of the few things he actually complains about...that the cheese sauce which I make and which he slathers all over whatever vegetable it is..is too thin.  (It has enough flour and cornstarch and cheese to sink the proverbial ship. )

[chromedome]

1 hour ago, Darienne said:

You're right.  I do eat leftover cooked vegetables straight from the fridge cold with no sauce or anything...but Ed would never do this.  In fact, he constantly complains...and it's one of the few things he actually complains about...that the cheese sauce which I make and which he slathers all over whatever vegetable it is..is too thin.  (It has enough flour and cornstarch and cheese to sink the proverbial ship. )

LOL He sounds like my GF, in that respect. She prefers her cheese sauce, gravy, chowder, etc to be thick and stodgy. 

...I do not. 

[patti]

On 1/13/2026 at 8:31 AM, Darienne said:

You're right.  I do eat leftover cooked vegetables straight from the fridge cold with no sauce or anything...but Ed would never do this.  In fact, he constantly complains...and it's one of the few things he actually complains about...that the cheese sauce which I make and which he slathers all over whatever vegetable it is..is too thin.  (It has enough flour and cornstarch and cheese to sink the proverbial ship. )

 

On 1/13/2026 at 10:28 AM, chromedome said:

LOL He sounds like my GF, in that respect. She prefers her cheese sauce, gravy, chowder, etc to be thick and stodgy. 

...I do not. 

I try not to let my husband’s food idiosyncrasies affect my choices for the CFM, so I’ll also try not to consider the food idiosyncrasies of  @Darienne’s husband, or @chromedome’s GF! 😂

[patti]

I’d love to say there were no hitches in this week’s CFM, but I can’t. Just after the labels were made and it was almost time for plating, my husband informed me we only had 7 of the three compartment to go containers left! We had plenty of the single compartment containers, but I didn’t want to use them. Costco is less than a mile away, but neither of us was prepared to go. How lucky that we managed to get an Instacart delivery within 20 minutes of realizing the problem? Had to pay $1 extra for faster delivery, but problem solved almost painlessly. Yay!

 

Cornbread was made (more than pictured), and sourdough was purchased. Both were dried out in the oven 

 

 

Jimmy Dean sausage, browned, along with the trinity, plus extra celery. 
 

 

Combining the meat mixture, cornbread, sourdough, and chicken stock. Seasoned with Tony’s, poultry seasoning, plus a little extra sage and thyme. I added four eggs to each pan of dressing for binding. 
 

 

And after baking. There were two pans. I baked at 350, covered, for 45 min. Removed the foil at 45 min, and decided to moisten with more stock, returning the pans to the oven, uncovered, for 15 more minutes. 

 

For the green beans, I started with bacon grease from the crock I keep in the fridge.
 

Softened the veg. 
 

 

Added the canned green beans, a few tablespoons of Better than Bouillon chicken base, and seasoned with Tony’s. 

 

 

Not much to say about the chicken! Seasoned and baked at 400 for 45 minutes. The tray on the bottom rack was moved to the top and cooked about 15 minutes longer to even out the browning. One tray pictured.
 

 

 

Dessert

 

 

 

The plated meal. 

 

 

I try very hard not to say anything when my husband changes capitalization or punctuation or uses random bolding. But if you bold baked chicken and green beans, why not cornbread dressing? And why not be consistent with spacing between items. AND WHY NOT JUST COPY AND PASTE EXACTLY AS SENT?! (Can you tell which of us is the nice guy and which is a controlling um, person?)

 

 

Regardless, success!